


What Makes Night Within Us May Leave Stars

by zovinar



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Ensemble Cast, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Urban Fantasy, in the "everything is magic and no one cares" way, so much fucking magic and lore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-11 21:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19934512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zovinar/pseuds/zovinar
Summary: Sometimes when your life falls apart and you have to pick up the pieces, you get help along the way. Sometimes you form incredible bonds with those unique and shining individuals. Sometimes those people have eyes too bright, teeth too sharp, voices too sweet.Sometimes you do too.-Kurusu Akira, your name is Kurusu Akira.All he knows right now is that his name is Kurusu Akira. And he’s hungry.





	1. ??/??

**Author's Note:**

> (what?? a fic that's not 100% crack? from MY zov?? it's more likely than you think!  
> quick cold open, notes at the bottom!)

_Kurusu Akira. Your name is Kurusu Akira._

It feels like all he knows for sure right now is that his name is Kurusu Akira and he’s hungry.

That pen might still be on the floor. He can’t stop thinking about it.

He’d left a smear of his blood as the paper had been slid from his grasp.

Maybe it should’ve been satisfying, but he just feels empty. Hollowness gnaws at his insides.

He’d never felt more like he’d just signed his life away.

He…thinks?

All he knows is that his body hurts too much and he’s so hungry it’s pounding at his temples.

He can’t even remember if the man actually broke his leg or not, it _hurts hurts hurts_ but maybe not enough and the thoughts seem to just slide from his head.

When he breathes, the air drags over his dry mouth like sandpaper.

His throat clicks as he swallows.

The ache of raw wrists from where he’s cuffed to the table. 

Chains jangle as his hands tremble.

The droning stutters to a stop as hot tears spill down his face again, stinging as salt seeps into his cuts. 

Sympathy? Pity? 

Does he know her? She smells familiar, tangentially. 

Maybe?

All he knows is that there’s someone who’s supposed to come through that door and kill him even though they don’t want to, that he absolutely can’t tell the woman across the table from him any names, and that he’s

so

hungry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey cool sup guys! cold open is cold open, feel free to speculate away >:)c tags will get added along when they won't end up spoiling every damn thing. some of them are relationships and idk I think I'll put them in when at the very least all the characters in them grace us with their goddamn presence.
> 
> I'm slow and finicky, you have been warned, and this entire thing still barely has it's scaffolding built but I have a dedicated cheerleader which is good news for you guys. also, I have a [fic twitter](https://twitter.com/stovinar) you can hang at so have at it :3c


	2. 4/11 - Early Morning

Naturally, things start to fall apart on day two. At breakfast no less, he doesn’t even get to leave the house.

Akira falters when Sojiro sets down a plate of curry. Perfect, homemade, it looks delicious honestly, but the sight of it makes him go cold.

Because…

( _you’ve been met with a terrible fate_ )

His throat is dry as he swallows. Sojiro _doesn’t know_. 

“I— I can’t eat this.”

“I’m supposed to keep an eye on you for now, kid. I’m not gonna let you starve in the mornings at least.” 

Akira tries not to grimace. That’s not the issue, breakfast would be fantastic.

“Or,” Sojiro’s eyes narrow, voice going cool at Akira’s silence, “is this not good enough for you or something?”

“N-no, I just…”

Sojiro tosses down his newspaper, irritated. “Well?”

“I can’t…eat.” He tries not to wilt under Sojiro’s intense look. “Did no one tell you?”

“Don’t play around kid, I’m not taking any games from you.”

Akira cringes and his eyes slide away from Sojiro’s as he hesitantly opens his mouth. He doesn’t want to see Sojiro’s face when he sees Akira’s restriction seals. Most people don’t know what seals do from just looking at them, but there’s really only one type that someone in his situation would be running around with on their tongue. And…well. His teeth are subtle, but not that subtle. 

It’s not a question if Sojiro can do the math. It’s if he can add.

Getting convicted of assault was bad. Getting convicted of vampiric assault would have been so much worse. Getting accused of it was enough for the police to decide to restrict his allowed blood consumption.

If he’s lucky, his synthetic stipend will be enough for him not to starve.

He doesn’t even think he was actually charged with anything, just that someone found out Akira was Vamp and put a note in his file to make his parole even more miserable.

Still, it seems like the police are trying to keep that info on lockdown, which is…lucky. Paranatural crimes involving Occult juveniles usually get a lot of leeway and hush hush; that and the fact that nowhere in his official record does it say anything about the restriction seals or why he might need them is probably his saving grace. 

Assault conviction? Bad. Vampiric blood restriction seals? Garbage. To most people he might as well have an ankle tracker and maybe a few restraining orders on top.

Sojiro rubs a hand over his face. “You’ll be getting those fake blood packs or something, right?”

“Yeah, I need to because…” Akira waves a hand at his mouth as he bites his lip. Even now the seal feels more like a brand.

Sojiro barks a laugh. “At least I know for sure you won’t be causin’ me any trouble that way.”

And Akira winces because, well it’s true, but almost cruel. If he tries to drink from anything living or has any type of organic blood, the seals will activate and make him…ill. Very much so.

“Can’t eat though, huh? I sorta know your parents kid, they’re as baseline as you get and that shit’s genetic. Think you gotta be pure born, or something close. How’d you end up that far on the scale?”

“Bad luck.” To put it plainly, Akira’s entire existence is a fluke and fate seems to hate him. “Do you have the…details? For my stipend,” he asks, trying to strangle the anxiety in his voice.

Sojiro rubs the back of his neck, looking a little abashed. “I’ll get in contact with your probation officer today. If he doesn’t have any info, no one will.” At the panicked look that starts to creep across Akira’s face he quickly tacks on, “I’ll make sure to get it. Don’t…worry, about that at least. In the meantime, think you can cook me up a list or somethin’ of things you actually _can_ eat? Or drink, I guess.”

“I—sure,” Akira mumbles, thinking despondently of the carefully maintained spreadsheet on his phone of what will or won’t make him sick and which of those things actually help him stay fed in the first place. 

The last category is oh so slim, even without cutting out the blood based ones the seals will now force his body to reject. 

“Good, get it to me and we’ll see about breakfast tomorrow.” Sojiro shakes out his newspaper and sighs, settling back in his chair. “Whatever else you want can wait until tonight. Get lost before you’re late.”

Akira gets lost.

Literally.

He’s late too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway I've seen some vampire aus where aki's not the vamp? and guys, what even. you do you ig, but still.
> 
> I feel like it might be better if say this is an akeshu fic upfront. trash boy isn't even HERE and won't be for a while but some people really don't like him so…


	3. 4/11 - Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (hey I'm gonna dropping some terms that might be obscure or unfamiliar so I'll have a quick glossary of them at the end :0c feel free to ask abt anything tho)

Everything comes together when a boy tries to die for him. It’s still just day two.

_(“Listen,” the boy hisses under his breath, “when you get a chance you gotta run, ‘kay?”)_

Because fate actually hates him just that much and the kid got dragged along for the ride that is Akira’s hell pit of a life after a perfectly normal night that went sideways when he tried to do the right thing.

Oh also, they’re gonna die.

And that it’s going to be at the hand of the man he had first seen right after he’d met _her_. The one that had made her, for just the briefest moment, _reek_ of disgust and caged fury.

The one that says oh so casually that they are both to die because he _feels like it_.

“Go! Just get out of here!” Sakamoto shouts at Akira even as he’s getting dragged away.

But Akira can’t, he’s paralyzed by just the idea of it—and then Kamoshida levels a hand at the boy struggling from where he’s been pinned against the wall, helpless. 

“Execute him,” Kamoshida says with a look in his eyes like Sakamoto’s a bug he’s had trapped and has finally decided to pull its wings off. 

This boy, Sakamoto—and Akira didn’t even know his name until just now and Sakamoto still doesn’t know his—that boy was trying to _die_ so someone he barely knows could live, that even now they’re both to die here like this is unbelievable, unacceptable. The injustice burns and burns and _burns_ within until the flames lick through his skin and everything, everything from today and the day before and the last month—

It crosses the line.

So he tears off the mask. He rips apart his facade and lets his true self gorge its way to the forefront because Akira has always been a creature of hunger and destruction and undying passion and he’ll damn himself along with the world if he has to.

Arsene draws the line in the sand and Akira devours _everything that crosses_.

And then the flames burn to ash and the curtain falls and all Akira is left with is the boy he saved who tried to die for him.

(Unbelievable)

* * *

So obviously, they run.

Weird clothes and the humming awareness of the now omnipresent demon filling all the spaces in his psyche that used to whisper for compliance and passivity aside, Akira would rather get out than get ingloriously murdered.

Arsene isn’t opposed to a fashionable escape either. Akira might even say that he finds the notion rather charming, to be quite honest.

So they run, Ryuji dogging his steps and already Akira feels safe in leaving the other boy to watch his back.

And then of course they run into a dead end and another game changer.

That the cat talks isn’t the weird part—it’s not even that the cat has the same power that Akira’s just awakened, it’s that the cat is being really insistent that he’s human. 

…It’s starting to piss Ryuji off, he can tell. And, well. Akira won’t deny it’s bothering him a little too. Day two and nothing so far’s really pushing back on the notion that humans can kinda suck. At the same time, a lot of baselines would probably be freaked out if they got shoved into the deep end of the paranormal without any warning, so fair enough. The Turned usually occupy a sort of liminal space in Vampire communities and within the code of conduct are offered a lot of leeway and guidance: even more so to those that were unwilling who, like how Morgana might be, can really work that denial thing. Coming to terms with the permanent loss of your humanity probably isn’t easy. Not that Akira would know.

Who knows for Morgana though. Maybe he just _really_ pissed off a witch or kami.

* * *

Getting to school (for real this time) and being called out by the…well, the dick that sorta tried to kill them in an alternate reality isn’t the best way to wrap up the morning. 

It’s almost not a surprise that Kamoshida hangs around after the other teacher leaves to drop some straight up Pneumatiphobic bullshit on them. Akira can’t even guess at how much worse it would be if he knew Akira was Occult too. Still, the way Kamoshida looks at Ryuji with utter disgust makes him want to throw up.

“So you were late as usual Sakamoto, but what else should I expect from an _animal_ like you. You’re practically a danger to the public when loose.”

“Wha—? Man eff you! I’m collared,” Ryuji spits, jerking his chin to emphasize the actual collar strapped around his neck and its glinting silver tag. “Everyone knows that, and full moon’s weeks out anyway!”

Akira eyes it as Kamoshida sneers something back. The punk collar probably isn’t the most non-regulation thing about Ryuji’s uniform, but it’s definitely not the one he’ll get called out for. Not a lot of schools are gutsy enough to get on a Werewolf’s case for how they wear their tags, regulations be damned.

Ryuji looks ready to storm after Kamoshida when he flounces off but calms after Akira presses a hand to his shoulder. “Thanks, man,” he says with a grateful look. “C’mon, I’ll show you to the fac’ office. It’s in this weird ass spot.”

Akira’s steps are quite but close as he follows Ryuji up to the facility office, trying to project reassurance and comfort at every turn, pushing just enough into his personal space for it to be nothing but deliberate. He can’t get the flash of panic in Ryuji’s eyes as he’d darted a look at Akira right before Kamoshida left out of his head. Like Akira might abandon him now that he knew. Like Akira would be _scared_.

Arsene echoes the simmering fury that burns through his blood and makes his eyes want to slit and bleed red.

Akira has never been part of a coven, never been part of a cabal or court, but if Ryuji is looking for a pack he’ll be first in line to sign up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> terms!
>
>> **Pneumatiphobia** is formally defined as a fear of spirits but here it's being used in the context of anti-occult discrimination
>> 
>> **The Turned** are a Vampiric class that refers to Vampires that were…turned? that's p straight forward but the other classes are less so and will be talked about later
>> 
>> **covens/cabals/courts** are all collective nouns for formally defined groups of the Occult or Paranormal community. covens is for witches or vamps, courts are for fae/deities, and cabal is for groupings of wizards and magicians usually. everyone knows what a pack is for werewolves.    
> 
> 
> (witches mages magicians and wizards? could they all be different?? yes. yes they can)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm deffo a scattered writer so I make no promises but I'm also an attention needy black hole like akechi goro so feel free to chat me up in the comments or at my [fic twitter](https://twitter.com/stovinar)


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